Love Clanknnection
by TheAceLombax
Summary: Clank's blind date does NOT go well. No bad language, or violence. A few mild sexual references, but nothing too gratuitous.


**Love Clanknnection**

To an outsider, it must have seemed as though the little robot had no emotions whatsoever. When someone looked at that small face, what did they see? Two large green domes for eyes, a wagging antenna that glowed red like the hindquarters of some venomous, carnivorous insect. Bolts and metal and ever the cold feel of something not quite natural, and not entirely alive.

But Ratchet knew better. He supposed it was part of travelling for so long with him, but he had grown to understand his small friend and the little tics that could betray his mood. When he was happy, his endearing waddle became a strut, and in his gaze shimmered a rare glint. When he angered, his posture, normally so stoic and certain, began to shake and gesticulate with a rage he understood all too well. And when he grew sad? Well, when that happened, it was more obvious than any other emotion, because all of a sudden, Clank didn't care about boring him and Talwyn with technical jargon, and didn't have the enthusiasm to so much as raise his head.

He looked, Ratchet thought, like a robot remembering he was a robot.

And so it was that night. He and Talwyn had dressed their friend up, decking him out in a freshly cleaned and steamed tuxedo tailored specifically for all his odd proportions. Clank had been beside himself with joy for a few days, and as the auspicious night drew closer, had been pacing and rushing to the mirror with alarming frequency, staring at himself in the mirror and looking for spots of rust.

What had caused such uncharacteristic vanity? The cause was as it always was; the heart.

Ratchet had no clue why it had become so important to the robot, but Clank had become increasingly insistent on finding someone, on putting himself out there and trying out what humble organic life forms such as himself knew as 'romance'.

"Trust me, buddy." He frowned. "It's not all it's cracked up to be." And, for saying so, Talwyn's knuckles cracked against his arm, forcing him to revise his opinion. "What I _meant_ to say is that there's a whole lot of fish in the sea. Just be careful you don't reel in a tyre."

Clank's finger rose to his chin and had tapped there, his eyes squinting curiously. "_Hmmm_," he mused, "a tyre you say? Sturdy, durable, can be burned to provide heat. Yes. Most agreeable."

"No!" Spluttered Talwyn. "No, sweetheart, that's not what he - "

"Where can I find a tyre?" Mumbled Clank, still tapping away and walking in an agitated, ceaseless circle.

"Oh, good God." Talwyn's hand had veiled her face, she sounded on the verge of screaming. "He's going to date a tyre. He's actually going to buy a tyre, buy it dinner and _date it_." Ratchet felt a poke in his belly, and saw her tail prodding at his soft fur. "This," she seethed, "is all your fault."

"Mine?" He had yelped. "Hey, if he wants to date an inanimate object, let him! Tom Cruise did it, and he's still getting steady work."

At that, the conversation had descended into an impassioned argument about the merits of Katie Holmes, with Talwyn championing her as an underappreciated and underutilised starlet who had not been given the right roles, and Ratchet simply repeating the words _Batman Begins_ over and over again. Unfortunately, their spat had done nothing to dissuade their friend from wooing a length of black rubber.

Talwyn, realising this, had laid a gentle hand upon his shoulder, and stopped his incessant pacing. "Listen," she smiled, "dating can be pretty fun, but you're still new to it. Tell you what, we'll walk you through what to do, get you ready, and set you on your way. Sound good?"

Clank had graciously agreed, and relegated the image of him French kissing a flat tyre to the darkest, most bizarre recesses of Ratchet's mind.

They had told him all about how one traditionally found themselves a lover, and instructed him of the best bars to frequent, and the wittiest, most effective chat-up lines in their arsenal. '_Don't scream_' being Ratchet's personal favourite. Talwyn's approach was more cerebral, and involved an elaborate murder-pact in which she would offer to kill your enemies in exchange for a single candlelit dinner at a place of her choosing. With such sound advice, and a brand new suit, how could Clank go wrong?

"Well," he thought, "somehow it has."

Ratchet and Talwyn exchanged a quick, nervous glance and rushed to greet their friend as he closed the door behind him. Clank waved away their questions, shook his head at their concerns and hopped atop the sofa, giving a great, horrible sigh.

"That," he sadly proclaimed, "was less than fruitful."

Ratchet opened his mouth, to ask what had happened, but shut it when he saw the forbidding look on Talwyn's face.

Clank's small head shook back and forth, and his fingers rapped against the steel, as if to check for some dent or scratch. "If you must know," he sulked, "my companion for this evening was a less than refutable character. They were, if I am recalling the officer's words correctly, a _gentleman of the afternoon_, and involved in a criminal enterprise which sees them exchanging physical favours for monetary gain."

Ratchet looked away, stuffed his knuckles between his fangs and tried not to laugh.

"But I don't understand," frowned Talwyn, "that bar I told you about is a lovely place, there's no one like that there."

"The alcohol disagreed with my circuitry, Talwyn." He explained with a shrug. "And as I returned home, I found Mr. Glover sitting on the side of the road, waving at traffic, I assumed he was lost."

"_God!_" Ratchet thought, trying to hide the tears that had begun to sting his eyes. "_Don't laugh! He's your best friend, don't laugh!_"

"We approached one another," the robot continued, "and talked for some time. In hindsight, his continual insistence on a quantity of bolts for every hour passed should have indicated something was amiss, but I simply thought he was very, very greedy. In truth, we were having a nice conversation before his arrest. Mr. Glover had the most fascinating stories."

"Oh-ho-ho," choked Ratchet, "I'm sure he did."

Clank's eyes narrowed in confusion, but he went on regardless. "He explained that he once belonged to a great magician, until an...'explosion' 'ruined everything'. It was an intriguing tale, though I didn't quite understand all his talk of magical potions and murderous twins."

"I'm sorry, Clank." Whispered Talwyn.

He smiled weakly at her concern, seeming slightly emboldened at being reminded of how much she cared for him. "Quite all right," he nodded, "I confess I am just a little embarrassed by it all. One moment we are ordering dinner, and the next he's wedged in the waiter's zipper. It was truly the _Ratchet? _Why are your cheeks turning red?"

"_Noreason_." He squeaked from behind his hand.

"Are you ill?"

He shook his head.

"Is it excess gas?"

"_Nope!_" He chirped, imagining the chaos at the restaurant and crying with joy at the sheer absurdity of it all.

"Is it - "

"Hold on." Talwyn cut in. "He's _laughing_. You're _laughing!_ Aren't you? Oh my God. Your best friend's spilling his guts, he's one bad word away from pyjama bottoms and a tub of Häagen-Dazs, _and you're laughing at him?_"

"No!" He stammered. "No, Tal, c'mon, of course I'm not laughing at him. It's just...come on, you both know this is hilarious!"

"I can detect a hint of humour to my evening, yes." said Clank, an admission that did nothing to calm down Talwyn.

"Bad friends and vice cops aside," she pouted, "I hope you don't let one bad experience sour you on the whole idea."

"Of course not!" The robot giggled, rising a little from his slouch. "In fact, I am already contemplating new ways of finding a romantic life mate."

"Such as?"

"The internet." Talwyn and Ratchet's faces dropped, their tongues went dry, and they cast each other the swivel-eyed glare known from galaxy-to-galaxy as the universal acknowledgement that someone you loved had made a terrible mistake. "Many websites allow you to peruse a wide array of possible suitors, and give a more comprehensive picture of your personality. In fact, I have already composed the blurb for my profile."

"Oh. That's...nice. C-can we read it?" Ventured Ratchet, trying not to let his friend notice the grimace that just wouldn't go away.

Clank cleared his throat, and a sudden flash of white binary passed over a green eye. "_Heh-hem!_" He coughed theatrically. "_Cosmopolitan robot in search of sturdy organic life form with which to spend the duration of their life with. Must have high tolerance of nightly electrical discharges, and have experience of removing Lombax fur from household furnishings. Non-smoker preferred_."

"Well," sighed Ratchet, "that was, er, I mean, that's really...huh."

"Awful." Talwyn blurted, sparing Ratchet the trouble. "Just awful."

"What?" Yammered Clank, his voice rising, sounding hurt, confused.

"It is." She reiterated firmly, her making wild, agitated slashes. "All of it. The idea in general, Clank, is awful. Totally awful. And trust me, I'm speaking from experience. Before I met this reprobate," her thumb motioned to Ratchet, "I spent a _lot_ of time by myself. Stuck in a space station, listening to Cronk and Zephyr tell the same damn stories over and over again, God rest their souls. But I thought what you're thinking, I thought I could just show people my picture, tell them a bit about myself and _voila!_ Instant love. And, for a moment, it seemed that it might work. I met this great guy, an Earthling, called _RezCrusha1994_. Oh, he was strapping alright. Nice pecs, rock-hard abs, and...other things I won't comment on."

"Thank you." Smiled Ratchet.

"Point is," she went on, "I thought we would be perfect together. So, we talked, we sent messages back and forth, and eventually, I invited him up to the space station. I had dinner made up, candles, Lionel Ritchie, the whole nine yards. And what happened? Well, I opened the door, and those rock-hard abs weren't there. No. All I got was a gecko."

"A gecko?" Clank's mouth opened in sheer puzzlement. "As in the lizard?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "Oh, he could talk all right. He could talk all night long. He comes strolling in, crashes on my couch, and for _nine and a half hours_ lectures me about all the reasons Quentin Tarantino won't read his screenplay. He left green scales everywhere, regurgitated a dead mouse, and did things to my stuffed Charmeleon that I haven't even shown Ratchet yet."

"No rush." He shuddered.

"I thought I was getting the love of my life." She concluded. "All I really got was mouse-vomit, and a wallet ten bolts lighter. Do you see what I'm saying, Clank? Love's tough. Love takes hard work. There's no quick fix, and no way to find it overnight. But when you do, it makes it easier to forget all the gecko scales and drug-addled male prostitutes. When you find you're perfect someone, it makes the long wait seem worthwhile."

"And, hey." Ratchet grinned, adjusting Clank's little bowtie, and trying to sound glib, as though the words he spoke meant nothing. "Even if you never find that someone, you've always got us, right? And we love ya'."

"Well. I love you both, too." Clank said with a small bow of his head, understanding his friend perfectly, hearing more than Ratchet's carefree tone meant to reveal.

They didn't speak much about what had happened for the rest of the night. It was too embarrassing for the poor little guy, too silly. But when the robot fell asleep, and his eyelids closed and his mouth yawned open, Ratchet looked at him and thought he knew what he dreamed of.

Clank would not dream that night of Mr. Glover and his hourly rate, or of Talwyn's horrible dinner date, or even of the nice, homely tyre he had spurned. He thought that Clank would dream of them, of him and Talwyn, and smile as he did, thinking that the love of two good friends was love enough for him.


End file.
